English cricketer enters exclusive club by hitting 410 runs in single inning

Leicester, England, July 23

Sam Northeast entered an exclusive group of cricketers to pass 400 runs in a single innings after hitting 410 not out for Glamorgan in an English County Championship match on Saturday.

He didn’t get a chance to challenge Brian Lara’s world-record individual score of 501 — set in 1994 while playing for Warwickshire, also in an English county match — because Glamorgan chose to declare on 795-5 against Leicestershire.

Northeast, a 32-year-old right-handed batter, hit 45 fours and three sixes in his 450-ball knock. It is the highest individual score this century in elite-level cricket, surpassing Lara’s test-record 400 not out for West Indies against England in 2004, and the ninth highest of all time.

Only eight players had previously ever made 400 or more in first-class cricket.

Like Lara, Australian batter Bill Ponsford passed the 400 mark on two occasions, when playing for the state of Victoria in the 1920s.

Northeast’s knock was the fourth 400-plus score in the English county game, after Lara, Archie MacLaren (424) in 1895 and Graeme Hick (405) in 1988. AP